Several years ago my wife and I went away for a few days at the beach. There’s something about the sounds of the surf rolling into the shore that is relaxing, and we both enjoy taking it in and unwinding. One afternoon while we were out and we noticed the group of ladies next to us had ordered sandwiches and fries for lunch. As they dove into their meals we became aware that we weren’t the only ones had noticed the meals. The sea gulls had noticed as well.
We watched as the gulls slowly floated by, their eyes intent on the ladies’ hands moving to and fro with French fries dangling from their fingertips. My wife and I looked at each other and thought, “Surely Not?”, and then one by one the gulls swooped in on the ladies.
Before we knew it there were gulls trying to grab fries from their hands, gulls at their feet – then a gull landed on one of their plates! It was like the scene from a Hitchcock movie as the gulls swooped in over and over, stealing fries, bread, and any bit of composure that the ladies had possessed. The ladies were screaming, running in circles, and throwing their food away from them in hopes that the birds would leave them. As food began to litter the sand around their palapa, even more birds showed up. It was as if they had opened up a sidewalk café for all the birds flying by.
By now there was quite a commotion going on. Women screaming, birds squawking, sand flying – mothers were grabbing their children and fleeing the scene. As my wife and I looked at each other trying to decide what to do, we grabbed our towels and ran at the birds – waving the towels up and down to chase the birds away. The birds were reluctant to leave at first, but after a couple of passes they relented and flew away.
The remaining scene was quite a spectacle. We had a group of wide eyed ladies, hair disheveled, mascara running and visibly shaken. We had plates and the remnants of their meals littering the sand. We had beach chairs and loungers flung about the area. Everything in their area was in total disarray. After they gathered up their items, the ladies quickly left the area and called it a day.
My wife and I moved away to a more quiet area and then sat in disbelief of what we had just witnessed. It had been crazy. Those gulls had swooped in with no fear. Even the screams of the ladies had done little to faze them as they took the food out of their hands and off of their plates. Since the screams and flailing hadn’t been directed at them, the gulls had disregarded it and went about their business.
That scene those years ago has come back to me over and over as a reminder and object lesson. When I think out those gulls swooping in that day it brings 2 Corinthians 10:4-6 to mind:
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
When those gulls were swooping in, stealing food and terrorizing those ladies, all of the noise and movement that the ladies were generating wasn’t directed at the birds. Since it wasn’t directed at the birds, the birds disregarded it and went about their mayhem. Yet when my wife and I went toward those same birds and waved our towels at them, they relented and left.
It is the same in our thoughts. We can have thoughts and situations that occur in life that can get us all worked up, but at some point we have to compose ourselves and focus our energy on what is upsetting us. We have to confront that which disturbs us if we want to overcome it.
In the scripture passage, Paul instructs us that thoughts, arguments, etc. will come and attempt to set themselves up as having more validity than the knowledge of Who God Is and What He Has Said. We will have to answer those thoughts with who we know Him to be and what He has said.
When thoughts come that say that your situation is impossible, you can answer that “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27)
When the thought comes to you that says you are all alone, answer it that Jesus has said He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Heb. 13:5)
It’s in this way that you can answer those thoughts and take them “captive”, or restrict them so that they no longer run rampant, stealing your peace and your sleep – just like those gulls stole those ladies’ fries. Take your knowledge of God and run at those troubling thoughts just like we did that day with our towels. Wave your promises at them and stay at it until they relent and go away. As you grow in this, learn to chase away those thoughts before they cause mayhem in your life. We learned a lesson that day on the beach, and we have been watchful to shoo away gulls when they come to see what we may be eating. Not a French fry of ours has been lost to a gull to this date!
